River Blindness Disease

The old man lifted his head to the cloudless sky, his eyes turned upward in the sightless stare of onchocerciasis--the crippling river-blindness disease that maims some 30 million people worldwide. "It started here," he said, stroking his chest with his huge, callused hands, "but then it went through my whole body and started eating my eyes."

Africa's 20-year effort to control onchocerciasis, or river blindness, may be threatened by growing resistance to the antibiotic ivermectin, researchers reported Friday in the journal Lancet. A team from McGill University in Montreal studied 19 communities in Ghana that had been receiving the drug. Although the drug wiped out the disease in 99% of patients, four communities experienced a comeback of the parasite.

Africa's 20-year effort to control onchocerciasis, or river blindness, may be threatened by growing resistance to the antibiotic ivermectin, researchers reported Friday in the journal Lancet. A team from McGill University in Montreal studied 19 communities in Ghana that had been receiving the drug. Although the drug wiped out the disease in 99% of patients, four communities experienced a comeback of the parasite.

Leprosy, one of humanity's most ancient and feared scourges, can be virtually eliminated by the year 2000, and victory also is near in the battle against river blindness, which has affected millions in West Africa, the World Health Organization reports. It said the two diseases will soon join smallpox and polio in the pantheon of once-widespread afflictions eradicated by aggressive vaccination and treatment programs. "Eliminating leprosy as a public health problem is no longer a dream," said Dr.

Leprosy, one of humanity's most ancient and feared scourges, can be virtually eliminated by the year 2000, and victory also is near in the battle against river blindness, which has affected millions in West Africa, the World Health Organization reports. It said the two diseases will soon join smallpox and polio in the pantheon of once-widespread afflictions eradicated by aggressive vaccination and treatment programs. "Eliminating leprosy as a public health problem is no longer a dream," said Dr.

Pasadena college student Christopher Lum was horrified when he heard that barefoot blind men stumble for miles through West Africa's savanna, only to reach a primitive two-room adobe hospital in the dreary bush land. The 25-year-old senior at Pasadena's Art Center College of Design learned that victims of the crippling "river blindness" disease near Tamou, Niger, have nowhere else to go for help.

Academia is still abuzz over a new book charging that a measles vaccine killed hundreds of primitive Amazon Indians three decades ago. But the Yanomami today have other problems, just as deadly. Chronic malaria and river blindness have decimated and debilitated the Yanomami, endangering the future of the world's largest remaining Stone Age tribe, Indian experts say.

The old man's wide eyes, blanketed by a ghostly glaze of silver, neither blink nor acknowledge a visitor. They simply dare her to speak. But when she whispers hello, the old man is gentle and embarrassed by his ability to frighten--with the stare of the lion, say the children of his village--and by his inability to see. "I thought I had done something bad and that God was punishing me," says Diarrassouba Ngousse. "My only regret is that I can't see my children, my wife. That's what hurts me the most."

Word came to Benson Deng in a letter from a half-brother. The mother he had long thought dead might still be alive. It was 1998 and home for Deng then was an overcrowded refugee camp in a remote part of Kenya. His mother, the letter said, apparently was living in a desolate village in neighboring Sudan -- the war-torn country Deng had fled 11 years before.

The old man lifted his head to the cloudless sky, his eyes turned upward in the sightless stare of onchocerciasis--the crippling river-blindness disease that maims some 30 million people worldwide. "It started here," he said, stroking his chest with his huge, callused hands, "but then it went through my whole body and started eating my eyes."